I was surprised by this also. However, I am aware that research bodies may be subjected to non-disclosure agreements regarding raw data.
Actually the panel didn't conclude that the science is robust. They merely found no reason to question the science. The scope of the inquiry was into allegations of data manipulation and the disclosure of raw data.
The validity of the resulting science is something that another inquiry would have to determine.
I agree that is probably true. In particular, I was surprised that the panel reached its conclusion after only a day of oral testimony. I wonder if they took time to thoroughly examine the primary evidence (ie. the emails). The emails probably could have been subpoenaed from the University; even if the perpetrators deleted them, the original copies may have still existed in backup storage.
Beware. We don't know about the veracity of the emails on that website. Obviously the author of the website claims they are genuine, but who's to know?
Probably not. The theory that we are is unproven, and the evidence to support the hypothesis is either incomplete or absent. Some of the data even shows evidence of tampering to create a warming signal where there isn't one.
So.. bottom line.. there's more evidence of fake science than there is of science proving man-made global warming.
Sweden refuted UEA's misrepresentation of their position. Sweden never said they didn't want THEIR data released. They said they didn't want CRU's value-adjusted version of their data to be released. Canada's data is available on their website. When they said "no" to the CRU releasing their data, they didn't say their data couldn't be released. They simply said they'd rather the CRU provided links to their own public-facing datasource directly, rather than releasing the CRU's value-adjusted version of Canadian data, modified by Phil Jones.
These realities were grossly misrepresented by Acton, who has actually set himself up for prosecution, giving false or misleading information at a Parliamentary Enquiry.
It's not even that they didn't find a reason to question the science. They said that, with 1 day of evidence, they didn't even look at it. They did press the Muir enquiry to go public, though, which I think was probably Stringer mucking in.
Unfortunately, with Boulton in one enquiry and Oxburgh in the other, the chances of any other enquiries being better than this sham are less than optimal.
I was disappointed to be unsurprised at finding no reference to Steve McIntyre, whose parliamentary submission was comprehensive and damning.. and about whom much of the email content concerned or referenced.
Yeah, we do. I've done my own comparisons of the emails at eastangliaemails.co.uk to double-check. They're the same set I have in the original FOI zip. Unless they've improved on it, though, their search feature was only matching results in the first 1000 or so characters of the emails. But the validity of the emails isn't in question. It's just a good online way for sceptics to cross-reference and link to specific emails.
This enquiry hasn't done anything to strengthen climatology as a science, and it's done a lot to increase broad scepticism of it. It's made me a lot more involved and vocal in the debate, and it's given me a lot more ammunition to fire at those friends who are "believers" but who don't understand the science. Usually I find I have to get elbow-deep in the scientific process, the problems with climatology's statistical analysis, or problems in its base data/collection methods in order to highlight reasons for scepticism. This enquiry is easier to point at, and say "whitewash" with much simpler justifications. It's helped my case, anyway.
Yeah, I have now. I've spent the last 4 months reading scientific papers, journals, blogs and comments. I just hope that, if I went digging, I wouldn't discover the same level of sham science, mutual masturbation and advocacy at the pioneering edge of something important, like nuclear or medical research, because we'd be ****ed.
You'll find a lot of dodgy doings in any endeavour, including science. Unfortunately, pioneering research and discovery seem to be most prone to abuse, as they typically involve the biggest stakes in funding and reputation. Peer-review is a facilitator for debate and discussion, not a guarantee of accuracy or honesty.
Yup. It seems one of the more severe breakdowns in procedural science is that a developing field hasn't properly been overseen, and environmental science departments have been left to set their own standards. Tens of millions to the UEA for 3 permanent CRU staff.. tempting to look the other way.. or not look too closely, huh?
But I do blame Acton, because it was the university's responsibility to oversee its research department, and the university reaped the benefits of government grants to fund their advocacy research. I just don't see Jones being morally or legally vindicated. He knew he was junking the science, and that's why he hid his data and tired himself out circumventing FOI requests.
I'd be very surprised if the same scenario isn't repeated in university environmental science departments around the world. When you look over the science that's supposed to underwrite the supposedly "settled science" AGW hypothesis, I find it inconceivable that it could have been performed under the auspices of attentive universities.
I did my best on that site to hammer out some facts with Shawn Wheeler. Unfortunately, he decided to turn and run rather than face down his religious beliefs.
I had been working with a chap called David Holland, trying to get his submission to the Russel enquiry up to scratch. Unfortunately by the time I'd got involved, Sir Muir had already decided to reject Holland's submission and refused to accept any further submissions. We were expecting the enquiry to deliver its findings last Tuesday or Wednesday, ahead of the election, but it didn't happen. Quite a surprise there. But bloody hell, the things I've learned about the behaviour and antics of the Hockey Team would make your toes curl.
Has anyone read the Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford yet? It's supposed to be a brilliantly written book.
I just think it's sickening that people believe these so called 'scientist' theories. Why should 'science' cause people to give up more of their hard earned money? It shouldn't but it does.
I've been thinking about how it is that so many people believe in AGW, and I think there are a few good reasons why normally rational people fall for something that, it turns out, is actually utter bullshit. I've described AGW as a "trojan religious belief".
People reject religion as irrational, unprovable and illogical.
They embrace science because they perceive it as the opposite of religion.
They believe that scientists are dispassionate and will only state proven theories as fact.
They fail to recognise dogmatic/political conviction in advocacy research/science because they don't expect to find it, or because they believe that systems in place will prevent bad science from becoming mainstream.
They don't/can't understand the science and appeal to authority for the bottom line mantras and claims.
They unquestioningly accept claims in post-normal science (Climatology) mistakenly believing it is traditional science (Galilean), established by due scientific process in accordance with the scientific method.
They desire to be forward-thinking, intelligent and virtuous. They believe that belief in AGW is a means of expressing this.
The cycle is complete and a religious dogma without scientific foundation becomes established.
Bearing in mind I was told on this forum that 90 odd % of 'greenhouse' gas is water vapour. Meaning that increased carbon reduced plant transpiration thus reducing water vapour.
I also agree entirely about people who embrace the AGW phenomenon as a way to seem clever and liberal (which seems to be the cool thing these days). It's just a case of people who don't think out of the box (or with their individual brain power) and stick to the main agenda.
It's been pretty clear (for me) that it's been manufactured for a long time, the whole climategate and stupid theories only proves this further for me.
That's why the "Greenparty" makes me laugh, they actually think they can run a country on being primarily Green and constantly going the extra mile to BE Green? It's laughable. Greenparty in power would just mean even MORE tax to pay ontop of everything that the current governments pose on us. We all know politics and religion/beliefs go hand in hand, so why does it seem like only a select few on this forum have twigged this?
Having said that, the majority of people you speak to in personal life all agree that AGW is aload of nonsense, simply on the basis that the Earth (whether you believe in a religion or not) was here before humans were and nothing humans do can alter the course of the planet but alot of common people are smarter than we give credit for.
If they can't prove it to you with some test tubes or a puppet show, it ain't real!
That's good Sam. Also at work here is the largely media driven (but regularly put forward by certain climate scientists themselves) stereotyping of sceptics as right wing/creationist/flat earther/oil shill types- I guess in opposition to 'forward thinking, intelligent and virtuous' people. This is one of the most wearisome aspects of the climate debate simply because it is so far from actual fact. For example (you will already know this) the most important sceptical blog, Climate Audit- is routinely assumed by the press to be a 'right wing' blog, but people fail to realise that Steve McIntyre himself is a liberal while the blog itself is sharply focused on technical details and largely eschewes political debate. I think it's very easy for the average person to dismiss someone like Steve as soon as they've connected him to this stereotype- they will probably not even make an effort to visit the blog.
The most important thing to come out of all this for me is to realise how much I have come to value simple scientific objectivity. It's kind of a surprise- to realise that this is worth fighting for, even more so in a post modern culture where all opinions/ideas are automatically valid. Science was from the outset designed to get around this, with all these inbuilt protections to keep you from 'fooling yourself', as Richard Feynman said. But these foundations are gradually being chipped away, and perhaps we'll end up with a new science which simply agrees with whatever it is a scientist/politician wants to say. It's a real danger and I think you can look at the current state of climate science for examples to see where all this might be headed unless we can begin to sort through all the mess with a slightly more critical, less assuming, less political eye.
No, have not read the book (Hockey Stick Illusion) yet. I'm holding out for a decent e-reader and when I do I'd like to buy it as a pdf. I'm sure it would make a great primer for anyone interested in Climategate and the recent history of UEA CRU/Mann/IPCC etc.
You're definitely right, I've absolutely no doubt. In fact it's absolutely fundamental to the teachings at RealClimate, SkepticalScience and other "warmist" sites that Steve Mc, Anthony Watts, Andrew Montford, Steve Goddard, Willis Eschenbach and so many others are just dismissed as financed by Big Oil. They're not. But there's a real irony to it.. the CRU IS funded by "Big Oil".
For a while, a lot of sceptics weren't able to comprehend how Shell etc could get into bed with the CRU and other schools of environmental sciences but the bigger picture is that they're not actually "big oil". They're just "big money". These companies always have been primarily prospectors. It doesn't matter if it's oil or a good opportunity.. and this time what they're pursuing is the alternative energy opportunities.
Steve's blog is very good for being apolitical. His scathing blitz on Cuccinelli's move against Mann was certain to upset some of those who follow him, but I suspect every now and again he deliberately has a bit of a shake-down and drops some of his more political, less scientific, followers. On BishopHill a few days earlier, I'd kinda got hammered a bit for being a "lefty" in the comments but that was my fault for calling the right-wingers "tea-baggers". Little did I know what that term actually meant! I meant "tea-partiers".
It's a long time since we had a post here, so I thought I'd necropost.
The rumour mill says Sir Muir's enquiry report is expected to be released on 7/7. Not that we're expecting any insights or revelations, given the conflicts of interest on the panel. Hopefully after all this time we'll have more to pick through than the 5 page book report from Oxburgh, though.
In the meantime, Mike Hulme, a scientist at the infamous CRU, has obliterated the illusion of the oft-quoted "scientific consensus" in his latest paper.
A few dozen scientists? Yowzer! Though the offence was really the very suggestion that science might ever operate on a premise of validation by consensus, but to learn that the consensus wasn't even a consensus as we'd normally understand it but simply a trend of opinion among a few scientists in climatology and related fields. It's a helluva thing. Tom Wigley, former head of the CRU, makes his position on this kind of "consensus" quite clear in an email that turned up in the Climategate letters. In many ways, his email is quite prophetic:
Just saw this on 'What's Up With That?'. It's interesting to me because it's an analysis of temperature trends (raw and adjusted) in Victoria, Australia- my home turf.
I've been pretty sceptical of some of the statements being made in the name of global warming by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for a few years now (in particular some of the comments and analysis by the BOMs' David Jones, who is head of the climate division and is a well known and prominent 'warmist').
Until now I haven't been able to find any large studies into temperature record adjustments for my area. Finally, a fellow called Ken Stewart has kindly taken it upon himself to shed some light...
Once again, we see the trend of a strong warming bias in the adjusted data . With people like David Jones running things over at the BOM, this is perhaps all very understandable, yet it is still kind of shocking. At least in this case we still have the raw data to make these kinds of comparisons. You poor UK guys still need to conduct a proper examination of the contents of Phil Jones' dogs' stomach in order to find out what's really going on with your own data.
As far as I know, New Zealands' NIWA still refuses to release information regarding the reasons for their own warming adjustments. I wonder now how the BOM is going to react.
Yeah, I saw that. Atrocious! I can't believe these people have the audacity to cook the books like this, especially with people like Anthony Watts watching.
Were you able to get to see Anthony Watts on his speaking tour? I'm imagining not, or you'd have posted for sure!
The PSU enquiry has reported that Mann is not guilty of academic misconduct.. they're dismantling the report over at ClimateAudit. I think Steve McIntyre, if he isn't totally fed up at this point, will probably do a brutal deconstruction of the report's findings in the next few days. At first reading, I can already see Tom Sawyer's footprints across the lawn.
[edit] For anyone wanting a quick summary, the Sunday Times did misquote a Dr Lewis and retracted the entire story as a result. The substance of the "Amazongate" scandal, however, turns out to be more substantive than even the Sunday Times thought. The victory that is being claimed by the AGW camp is that the Amazongate story was false, but that's a plain lie.
Heh, no I didn't go and see him while he was here. I already spend too much time at Anthony's site anyway. I guess it would have been nice to meet him in person. Maybe another time.
I've been involved in a debate with Judith Curry over the last couple of weeks, where she's been copping quite a lot of stick from the likes of Michael Tobis and other activist climate researchers. It's amazing the playground-style stunts they pull, threatening to disenfranchise (facebook style "de-friend") her to destroy her credibility, all because she's willing to take on "citizen scientists" and listen to what their arguments are. She's pretty fearless, though, and she packs a mean punch. She's also tenured, so she's not so scared of having her funding removed for breaking ranks and being honest.
I think Climategate - and particularly, following that, reading the book The Hockey Stick Illusion - has made a sceptic out of Judith. Before Climategate, she did her thing in her field and she used the data from CRU and GISS all in good faith. Now she's looking at the data with fresh eyes and realising it's not the canonical thing of integrity she'd assumed it was. She's also not fond of postnormal science and I think she shares the values of hard sciences, that consensus is not the same as evidence and that the precautionary principle is an ideological doctrine rather than scientific process.
The old climate science is falling apart. It'll be interesting to see what rises out of the ashes.
I don’t know about weather forecast, but I know that science is a slow process where previous and actual believes are always put in question, so they are only the best of what we can do at a moment in time.
I think the best heritage for our children’s is clean water, clean air and clean food. Today none of those 3 are clean, we’ve even manage to infect all the fishes in the sea, antibiotics and contraception medications are in all our water supplies (and I don’t talk about all the other rejections due to intensive agriculture and industries) and I don’t think we can discuss that the quality of the air has not improved in the last 100 years. The hole in the ozone is real and it is also true that since we’ve stopped to use the gazes (CFC) which we thought were damaging it, the hole has been stable and was even recently reported to have been reducing. And I could go on for hours about facts we can see with our eyes, so if the question is ‘’do we have an impact in damaging the planet and contributing to global warming’’, I guess the answer is yes (by how much is not really important I think)…sadly we live in a world where the technique is to contradict everything enough to make ppls doubt and when they do, most of them don’t make a choice or go against.
Also I believe that ecology is unavoidable and is very expensive for the governments who have to start it and if they look for new revenues, in short term they will never be sufficient if oil has to disappear… that’s why they try to make us believe that wind, sun and biomass are they ways we should adopt, but I believe that they are all possible transitions from oil revenues to a ‘’greener’’ forms of revenues…sadly we almost never talk about things like geothermal energy, 5% is exploitable now and without much technologic improvement it has 5000 years of energy to offer to the all planet (oil company can drill holes 11kms deep now, say that we improve this to 30kms to get under hearth’s crust and we could use geothermal energy everywhere in the world at very low cost and with no negative rejections), but it would be very hard to justify the high energy bills we have to pay (no big dams, no expensive research, no expensive oil rigs and refineries…..). I believe that ppls in our governments are chosen to keep things as they are and avoid changes at all cost, today they can’t deny ecology to ppls because too many evidences are showing we need to change, but they still can keep oil a little cheaper than advertised renewable energies (wind, sun and biomass) which needs gigantic investments to become a viable solution in our economic system, so taxes on fuel will happen, but they will be moderated and will have very little impact on speeding up ecology since at least a doubling of the price would start to have a real impact….
One of you said that human nature was greedy and selfish, that’s true, but I don’t believe human nature is a definitive thing, human nature evolutes and changes function of its environment and education. We are formed to be competitive, greedy and selfish from day one because a minority is owning the world and that’s the best way for them to avoid solidarity in the majority…
So now if the so said scientific community aggravate the facts to fight those big machines (corporate and government) and make us realize that we can’t go on living like this…so be it!
I agree that the science is more than doubtable, it could be wrong both ways too, so I chose to be a believer because in doubt I think it is better to go for a cleaner way of living… it is less risky than denying it…
I've spent the last 4 months reading scientific papers, journals, blogs and comments. I just hope that, if I went digging, I wouldn't discover the same level of sham science, mutual masturbation and advocacy at the pioneering edge of something important, like nuclear or medical research, because we'd be ****ed.
I think it's very easy for the average person to dismiss someone like Steve as soon as they've connected him to this stereotype- they will probably not even make an effort to visit the blog. 
I meant "tea-partiers".